Cum Grano Salis
by DarthGabithaTheHutt
Summary: When John sends Dean to investigate a disappearance, a seemingly idyllic village is only the start of his problems.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: When John sends Dean to investigate a seemingly random string of disappearances, an idyllic village is only the start of his problems.

This story involves Sara Lucian, a character from most of my other Supernatural stories. Sara is a friend (and nothing more) of Dean who specialises in exorcisms and was trained by her mother, just as Dean was trained by John. Reading the other stories is probably not essential to understand this one.

The next chapter should be up in about five days. Reviews are hugely appreciated.

xxx

Lincoln, Nebraska,

25th May, 2005

Dean had to admit that there were worse ways to end a hunt, especially one that had gotten so dangerously close to being totally FUBAR. This wasn't the first time Dean had run into unexpected humans on a hunt, but this was the first time the human had turned out to be there on purpose. 

Freakin' rookie hunters. They were all going to get themselves killed. Or get someone else killed, which was even worse. But all Dean's disapproval couldn't stop him grinning at the sight of Ritchie trying – and failing – to chat up one of the prettier bartenders. Guy was a moron, but as Sara said, he was a nice moron.

Sara herself was trading stories with the bar owner, a woman called Elsie who knew exactly what Sara did through some complex situation involving a ghost obsessed with brunettes. Elsie, on the one and only time Dean had spoken to her, had called him 'a damn fool of a boy' and spent ten minutes telling Sara why men of any description were totally useless, but Dean still liked the woman.

He liked the bar as well. It wasn't often that he got to visit the same place more than once, and Dean was enjoying that novelty as well. Admittedly, he'd last stepped in here four days ago to pull Sara away from a date with Caleb to go and kill a succubus and this visit was definitely better.

The damn bouncer was still giving him the evil eye, Dean realised, and he gave the huge man a sardonic smile just on principle. For once, he was firmly resolved to avoid violence. At least, for the next few hours or so, if only because he knew that Sara needed some time to herself. Or with Caleb, her not-a-boyfriend-what-so-ever, but still. A need for personal time was to be expected after tangling with the same sort of monster that had killed your mother, and Dean was perfectly willing to hang around for another day or two.

"Hey, Winchester," Caleb said, sitting down opposite him.

Dean didn't start; he hadn't heard the man come in, but he had been expecting him to turn up at some point. "Don't worry, Cal. The succubus is toast."

"Who's the new guy?"

"Ritchie…" Dean tried to remember if the guy's second name had ever been mentioned. "Something or other. Just another new recruit who had no idea what he was walking into."

"Damn. I was kinda hoping he was your new partner."

"Oh, don't be like that. If you get rid of me, you get rid of all the glorious business I bring to you."

"And maybe you'd stop interrupting my limited social life," Caleb replied.

"Man, Sara's the only girl who I knew could handle that. Guys cannot fight succubuses. Even Amelia knew that."

Which was totally the wrong thing to say, although Caleb didn't do much beyond frown at him. Dean didn't know when Sara and Caleb had shifted from ships passing in the night to something oddly resembling a relationship, but he knew that Caleb just wanted Sara to be alive and happy. Taking her to hunt a succubus when one had killed her mother wasn't the way to either goal.

"Besides," Dean added. "Do you want to try and tell her to get out of this life? 'Cause I already have, and she didn't take it particularly well."

"I know." Caleb dumped a slim file on the table. "Your dad asked me to pass this along to you. No idea what it is, but he said it's not an absolute ASAP sort of deal, so…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Pull Sara away again before you've had your wicked way with her and I'll be hung, drawn and quartered."

"Damn straight." Caleb stood up, grinning. "Oh, and she'll bring you your bullets tomorrow morning. Or afternoon. Evening at the very latest."

"Noted," Dean said with a grin of his own. "By the way, I've got no plans to move till Sunday at the earliest." That was three days in the future and Caleb looked pleased as he nodded.

"I'll tell her," he promised and headed over to where Sara was sitting.

The two of them were gone a few minutes later, Sara giving Dean a thankful smile as she left, and Dean was left to keep an eye on Ritchie. Hopefully, he'd be able to talk the guy out of his plans of a hunting career in the next day or so. If not, he could kill time till Sunday making sure Ritchie knew enough to stay alive, as opposed to knowing enough to get yourself killed.

xxx

It was Sunday afternoon before Sara came back to the motel room.

"Well, that was worth the detour," she said, grinning.

Dean grinned back and shook his head, not bothering to get up from the table where he was assembling notes. "Please. Don't elaborate."

Thankfully, she didn't. "Where's Ritchie?"

"On his way to Minnesota. I told him to talk to Pastor Jim. Who knows? The guy might be a competent Hunter one day."

Sara snorted as she sorted through her bag.

"Yeah, alright," Dean agreed. "But if we're lucky, he won't get anyone killed."

"That would be nice." She pulled a box out of her bag and threw it at him. "The special iron rounds you wanted. And Cal said you might have a job?"

"Yeah. Dad asked us to look into this place in…" Dean pulled the map back towards him. "Wyoming. People going missing-"

"And no apparent pattern," Sara finished for him. "Why can't John handle it?"

"God knows."

"Dean…"

Dean shrugged. He'd been hoping to avoid that particular answer, but he'd tell the truth. If he had to, which apparently he did. "He's trying to track down Li."

It was still very strictly Li or Linus on the rare occasions that they talked about Sara's father. Which was very rarely, but that was sort of acceptable. The guy had bailed after meeting Sara just once, for crying out loud, and not even Will Atwood and his weirdo super-computer thing had been able to track the man down.

And for all of Sara's protests that she didn't want or care about her family, Dean wasn't exactly surprised by her next question.

"Oh. Where does he think Linus is?"

"Florida. At least, that's what he said."

Sara nodded, forced a smile. They both knew that John was only looking for Linus because the guy might have information the Winchesters wanted. "Alright. We'll go to Wyoming."

"Sure?"

"I'll just burn in Florida," she replied easily enough. "So what's the word on our MIA muppets?"

"It's only two, but they were both in this place called Jamestown. Dad said this place is weird somehow. Like, gave him the creeps."

"And a man like Papa Winchester isn't easily creeped out."

"Exactly. So while you were… occupied," Dean said, ignoring Sara's smirk. "I've been looking into this place, and there's no real reason that I can spot for that. No mass murders, no atrocities, no slaughters. Mind you, there wasn't even a local newspaper to look at."

"You know, normal people don't sound disappointed about a lack of bloodstains. So what did the local cops say about some of their own going missing?"

"Nothing. They don't exist."

Sara frowned, glancing up from the print-outs she nabbed from under Dean's nose. "You what?"

"No local cops. Jamestown has a population of less than a hundred. Only about seventy people, apparently. And the missing folk weren't locals."

"A conspiracy?"

"Maybe. Or it could just be coincidence."

"Coincidences only exist for the intellectually challenged," Sara replied absently. "Did John say why he wanted us to check this out now? I mean, whatever drew his attention to it at this time?"

"No. Why?"

"The first victim, Charlene Martson, she went missing over forty-five years ago. The second disappeared over twenty years ago. There's no reason for a hunter to spot this now."

"Divine inspiration?" Dean offered, shrugging.

"More like the other guy." Sara idly started to bite her fingers, pulling a face at Dean when he reached over to stop her. "I don't like this. Sending us off like this, without all the facts… Last time he ordered us around, it didn't end well for any of us."

And that was putting it mildly.

"He doesn't actually order us," Dean said. "More… requests. Emphatically."

"You do know that you're meant to be able refuse a request?"

"Come on, aren't you a little bit interested? Just a little bit?"

"You said it yourself, there's nothing there."

"Yeah, well… that's odd, right? Something bad has happened everywhere, so there must be something going on here."

Sara looked interested despite herself for all of half a minute. "Are you making this up?"

"Yeah. Did it work?"

She smiled, shaking her head. "I am so going to regret this."

xxx

Jamestown, Wyoming,

"Like I said, Will, there's nothing. Just this pair of missing people, no apparent connection, and a town normal enough to make Dean thoroughly twitchy."

Dean took one hand off the steering wheel to flick Sara's ear is revenge. She just grinned at him and kept the phone well out of his reach as he slowly navigated the few streets of Jamestown. This place was small enough not to even show up on Dean's maps, but it was roughly in the place where the people might have gone missing from.

"Nah, Adrian can stay where he is. Hell, I'm not even sure there's a hunt here," Sara continued. "You'll call if you find anything? Thanks."

"So Will's got nothing?" Dean asked when she tucked the phone away again.

"Nothing yet, anyway," Sara said. "Give him a bit of time and he'll know everything. Just like always."

"Have to love the Hub," he agreed, referring to the bizarre computer system Will had rigged up back in Wisconsin. "Alright. There's a diner across the street. Might as well get a meal out of this wild-goose chase."

Sara nodded and pulled out the EMF detector, switching it off and dropping it back into the glove compartment. Jamestown was a tiny place and there hadn't been a single blip on the EMF detector anywhere. Of course, that wasn't a guarantee for a freak-free day, but it did rule out most ghosts or curses.

"You know, I didn't think that places like this actually existed anymore," Sara said as they exited the Impala and started walking to the diner. "If this was England, I'd be expecting the Famous Five to come round the corner."

"The what?"

"Literary reference, sorry."

Dean gave her a good-natured shove, but he could guess what she meant. This place was… not normal, but what everyone wanted to believe was normal. Clean streets and a 'real sense of community' and friendly neighbours. Even the little school, red roof and all. It was enough to make Dean uncomfortable just on principle, but he supposed that stories of 'the perfect little town' had to start somewhere. What made the whole thing even more surreal, however, was that John Winchester had sent them here.

The meal in the diner was awesome, but uneventful, even if the sweet old lady who was running it did offer Dean free pie. She retreated while he was happily munching away, and Dean had no problems speaking with his mouth full.

"You picking anything up?"

Sara shook her head. "But that doesn't really mean anything, Dean. I'm only part-psychic. And I didn't find the hotspot for that haunting last month."

"Most likely because we didn't even know where to start looking," Dean said firmly. "You found that possessed football player easily enough."

"Yeah, whatever. But… Seriously, I think this is some sort of joke on your dad's part. There's nothing weird going on here. In a town this small, we would've heard of it already, even being strangers. And there's no realistic way to ask about people who went missing in the eighties without getting a really bad reputation."

"There's not even a motel in this place," he replied. "Alright, looks like we'll have to back off, at least until one of us comes up with something. Find a place to stay in the next town or something, 'cause I refuse to sleep in the Impala, and do more research."

Sara nodded. "Hey, did you spot a church anywhere on the way in?"

"Uh… no. Why? I though we still had plenty of the old holy water,"

"You know, if you'd just learn the damn prayer, you wouldn't have to steal holy water in the first place."

"No point. I've got you for that. So what's with the sudden piety?"

She didn't bother to comment on the word 'piety', because Sara seemed to have figured out that Dean wasn't quite the idiot he liked to pretend to be. "Not sure. Just… they have their own school, but not a church or chapel?"

"Maybe they just go to the next town?"

"Maybe. Ah, just forget I mentioned it. I'll just go grab us some snacks for that place down the road and then let's get out of here."

"Don't be long. I wanna be out of here long before dark."

"Won't take more than a few minutes, I promise."

Dean shrugged in reluctant agreement, although he wasn't sure where the reluctance was coming from. Sara seemed to be right about the whole wild-goose-chase thing, but they'd look a little deeper into this place just in case. And also because they had nothing else to do. Dean liked to keep busy. Besides, his dad wasn't often wrong. Yeah, it happened, but it might not have happened this time.

He was leaning against the Impala, idly humming AC/DC under his breath, when Sara entered the tiny shop down the road and even though this place was miniscule and entirely peaceable, Dean found he couldn't sit still. Glancing around, eyes tracking the movements of the few people around, he focused on one man, who was hurrying in the opposite direction to the shop.

Dean slid off the Impala, frowning. From this angle, he couldn't see much of the man, but he had a very good memory for people. The red hair, the height, even the way he was moving was setting off all kinds of warning bells in his head, and Dean really didn't give a damn if that wasn't an appropriate way to react to someone who could possibly be his best friend's father.

But then again, Linus was trouble. The whole absentee-father thing was completely overshadowed by the can-walk-into-hell-at-will thing, and Dean was more than pissed off just about the former.

It took his all of two seconds to make a decision and Dean set off after the man. Moving quickly without looking like you were was an art form that Dean had never quite mastered, but he managed to catch up just as his suspect turned into a narrow gap between two buildings. It was perfectly easy for Dean to grab him and slam him up against the wall.

"Li!" he said, his cheerfulness more due to the fact that he had been right than out of any real desire to see this guy again. "Long time, no see."

"Winchester," Li replied. "Shame. I was sort of hoping you'd been eaten by something."

Dean tutted. "Might want to be nicer to the guy who's keeping your daughter alive. Since you seem so unwilling to do that yourself."

"She can take care of herself."

"Agreed. Of course, she doesn't want to be left alone, but that doesn't concern you, does it? Now, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Trying to sort out whatever's going on in this place. And tell your father to leave me the hell alone. I'm not helping him again."

"So there is something weird going on here."

The cocky smile Linus was giving him made Dean slam the man back against the wall just out of principle.

"Jesus, Winchester. Might want to work on controlling that temper."

"Listen to me, you son of a bitch. I don't really care who sorts out the situation here, whatever the hell that might be, but my dad told me that you didn't even need Sara there for that pointless ritual of yours, so I want to know what the hell you were playing at back in New York right now."

"I needed to see her."

"Why?"

"Why do you care? You're not even hunting with her anymore."

Dean scoffed. "Shows how much you know."

And suddenly Linus looked very, very scared.

"She's here? Sara's here? Now?"

"Yeah." Dean let go of Linus, backing away slightly. This was… not good. "Why?"

"Dean, both of you have to get out of here right now."

"Why?" he repeated.

"Because you – and quite possibly Sara as well - fit the victim profile."

Dean turned and dashed out of the alley. That was not good. That was so not good. They had no idea of when or from where the people had been snatched, and they'd split up and-

Sara was walking out of the shop, a bag in her arms, and Dean skidded to a halt. She was frowning slightly, obviously wondering what the hell was up with her best friend. Dean gestured in a way which he hoped conveyed the message we need to leave right the fuck now and it seemed that Sara got the message.

She was at the corner, just about to cross the road, when Dean blinked.

That's all he did. Just blinked. 

And when he opened his eyes again, Sara was gone.

xxx

The next chapter will be up in a few days. Please review, guys!


	2. Chapter 2

xxx

Dean whirled around to face Li, who had followed him out onto the main street. "What the hell just happened?"

"Shit," Linus said with feeling. "That's just what I needed."

"What happened?" Dean repeated, more forcefully.

"He's got her. The bastard…"

"Look, if you don't share your information, I'll shoot you, alright?"

Linus glared at him. "Did you even bother to look into Jamestown?"

"There wasn't anything in the last hundred years. I couldn't even find a decent account of the people who went missing."

"So you just ploughed forward? God, that is just like a hunter!"

That last sentence could've come out of Amelia Lucian's mouth, and Dean couldn't help but wonder which one of Sara's parents that sort of sentiment had come from first. But it didn't really matter, not right now.

"Either give me a straight answer or tell me where to find Sara, I don't care which, okay?"

"I don't know where she is, but right now, that's the least of our worries."

"Maybe you were better off lost, you know that?"

"Shut up, Winchester. You need to get out of here. Right now."

"No way."

Linus shook his head. "She's your partner, fine. I get it that you feel responsible for her-"

"You really don't. I've been watching out for her since she was seventeen and I've done a damn better job of it than you or Amelia could ever have managed!" Dean snapped, and started walking back towards the Impala. He could handle this without Li just fine.

He yanked out his phone, scrolling down to Will's number.

"Winchester, I'm good, but I'm not that good," Will said when he picked up.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Well, get better, right now."

"Why? Where's Sara?" Even a crappy connection couldn't hide the suspicion in Will's voice.

"Whatever's here, it took her. I only took my eyes off her for a second, man, and she was gone."

"It snatched her right off the street?"

"Yep. There wasn't even anyone standing near her, let alone a car or a monster or whatever."

"Shit. Uh, I have got something, not a lot, but…"

"Dude, I'll take whatever you have. And where's Adrian?" Because backup was never a bad thing.

"Canada, went to talk to Maxwell. What about Singer?"

"Bobby's in Mexico. Something about a cursed set of cutlery or something." Sara had been giggling for hours over that one. "Guess I'm on my own," Dean finished, glancing back at Li.

Neither of them said it, but less than a year ago, Will would've been able to head out himself to lend a hand. A hunt which had gone seriously wrong had put at end to anything even resembling fieldwork for the youngest Atwood, and now Will spent all of his time doing the research for his brother and, more often than not, for Dean and Sara as well.

"Sorry, man. Grab something to write with, okay? I don't wanna have to go over all of this twice."

Dean opened the back door of the Impala, rummaging around to try and find something, anything which might lead to actual notes being taken. What he actually found was… He frowned, hooking one finger around the slim back cord, and pulled out Sara's necklace. The same silver spiral pendent that she'd been wearing since she was seventeen and, more bizarrely, the one she'd been wearing when she vanished less than ten minutes ago.

"Dean? Dean, you there?"

He put the necklace on the Impala's roof and found his notebook, flipping it open to a blank page. "Yeah, I'm here. Go."

It took a lot longer than he would've liked, but Sara had fricking disappeared because they'd gone blundering in and Dean was damned if he'd make the same mistake twice. And at least by the end of it, Dean had a slightly better idea of what was going on, and he was a lot more pissed off.

Yeah, he'd be having serious words with his dad the next time they met.

Turned out, Will had said, in the slow and careful way he'd perfected through months and years of giving Hunters bad news, that those two names Dean had had hadn't been the only people to go missing. There had been more. A lot more. Every twenty-two fucking years, going back over a century.

With a muttered thanks that sounded about as thankful as Dean felt, he hung up. Li was still standing there, and Dean turned to face him, picking up Sara's necklace in one hand.

"Our mothers? That's the link?" Dean said. "Sara was snatched 'cause her mom is dead?" That was the best working theory Will had for the disappearances and it did fit.

"More or less."

"What's the less?"

"It's not just everyone who lost their mother. The lady has to have died violent, and in close proximity to a demon or something seriously unnatural."

"How far back do the disappearances go?"

"First death was in 1851. That was a human psycho, but I'm prepared to bet he didn't stay dead. No idea what his name was, but I'm almost certain he was the local priest."

"And an irresponsible musician knows all this because…"

"Because I wasn't always just a musician."

"Whatever." Dean tucked Sara's necklace into his pocket. He'd give it back to her when he found her. "Right. We need to figure out where their church used to be."

xxx

Sara woke up with one hell of a headache, and the situation just went downhill from there.

The last thing she could remember was walking towards Dean with a bag of snacks in her arms. The bag was next to her, looking somewhat grubby, but this definitely wasn't the main street of Jamestown. It was pitch black, for one thing.

"Hate this part of the job," Sara muttered and found torch.

Basic stone walls, floor, ceiling. Normally, there'd be some difference in the stone at least, but it all looked almost identical under all the filth. The air was just as bad, more dust than oxygen, and Sara knew she'd be coughing like hell before long. There was one door, which was either rotted or just plain filthy. And there was no Dean.

"Dean!" she yelled. "Dean!"

It was a long shot, and she wasn't exactly surprised when there wasn't a reply, because that would be just too simple. The same went for her phone, still safely in her pocket. It would switch on, but there was no signal. She'd never liked technology.

Automatically, she reached for her pendent. When her fingers only brushed the fabric of her T-shirt, Sara looked down, surprised. Why would whatever had snatched her take her necklace, but not her weapons or kit? Admittedly, the simple necklace was more than just an accessory. The spiral acted as her focus for rituals and exorcisms, and without it, any attempts at such things would be much less likely to succeed. Sara rubbed her neck, more disconcerted than she would like to admit, and tried to think.

It was kinda odd, Sara would admit, that in six years of hunting she'd never been snatched by a monster before this. She'd been cursed, battered, attacked, threatened by and pissed off with various demons, but never been snatched herself. And she didn't like that it had happened now.

But she had food, some cans of drink, even her exorcist kit in its black rucksack. She had her two knives, her revolver. She had a pissed off, talented, incredibly determined best friend out there somewhere.

It could be a lot worse.

Squaring her shoulders, Sara picked up her rucksack and headed for the door, pausing for a second to strap her holster to her thigh and put her revolver safely in it. The role of damsel in distress had never been part of her repertoire.

xxx

William Atwood was the son of a Hunter, the younger brother of another Hunter, and was on very good terms with most of the major Hunters in America. He knew all about demons, knew the importance of thorough research – even more so since he'd nearly died due to a lack of info about a hunt – and, most importantly, was truly excellent under pressure.

Which was the main reason that he wasn't panicking. Or, to be more precise, wasn't panicking yet. There were still plenty of options to be explored, plenty of routes that might not lead to dead ends. There was still time.

Hunters didn't normally expect a happy solution to a missing person, but Will knew Dean wouldn't give up. The Atwood brothers, who had been watching over Sara long before any of the Winchesters were in the picture, had decided years ago to trust Dean. It helped that the guy was very good at his job, admittedly.

Will rubbed his eyes and gingerly stretched his bad leg. Sitting down for long periods of time always made it ache, but if research was the only way he could contribute to the good fight, then that was what he was going to do.

Even if he was trying to investigate a town that, for all intents and purposes, didn't exist. Jamestown, Wyoming, was so small it didn't show up on any map, didn't have a local paper, wasn't mentioned in any of the other local papers. A couple of phone calls had shown that no one else knew anything about it, and John fucking Winchester wasn't answering his phone.

Bobby Singer didn't know anything, Will had already checked. Adrian, a professional idiot brother when he wasn't hunting demons, was in Canada with Maxwell, a pretty powerful seer and with any luck, the old Canadian would have some insight to share.

But if he didn't…

Will crushed that thought before it went any further and turned back to the computers. The Hub was busy as always, various programs on multiple computers watching weather patterns, scanning new reports for key words, but this kind of search took a more personal approach.

But just as Will turned firmly back to work, a computer tucked right under the stairs started to beep.

Groaning, he heaved himself out of his comfortable chair and grabbed his walking stick, limping over to the relevant terminal. The damn alarm wouldn't shut up unless he told it to, after all.

"What the-" he muttered, skimming the text on the screen. Sitting down, he hit a few buttons, read some more information, and started another search.

That couldn't be right. That just couldn't be.

xxx

"The welcome sign said this place was founded in 1833," Dean said. "Eighteen years before the first victim. If you're right, and that was because of a priest, what the hell happened to the church?"

"Could be outside the town limits," Linus offered. "They used to do that in England."

"Yeah, but not in the nineteenth century. What? Sara goes on about that sort of stuff," Dean added when Linus stared at him. "Maybe it was destroyed."

"Probably. So why didn't they rebuild it?"

"Dude, you're the one who seems to have all the answers here." Dean looked back towards the diner. The lady there had been awfully chatty. "Well, until Sara's pet geek comes up with something useful, might as well talk to the locals."

"Local folklore?"

"Hey, there's a reason those old wives get listened to so much."

"Alright. I'll try the shop."

Dean nodded and the two went in opposite directions.

The lady in the diner, despite being just as chatty as Dean remembered, couldn't tell him why there wasn't a church. She could give him good directions to the one she went to, which sounded like a great place if you liked that sort of thing, but it was in the next town over and that wasn't exactly what Dean was after. And it took fifteen minutes for her to pause long enough for him to be able to back out of the whole conversation.

As he was leaving the diner, Dean's phone rang. He stopped just outside the door and answered, quickly looking around and spotting Linus waiting back by the Impala.

"Yeah?"

"Dean, there's- This is- Um."

Dean was surprised. He'd never heard Will that muddled before.

"Dude, calm down. What is it?"

"Remember when Sara's father appeared and disappeared? She got me to set up a search program, try and find out anything about him."

"Figures."

"Yeah, well, it looks like she was right to be suspicious. I just got a hit on Linus. From Jamestown, Wyoming."

"You're fucking me."

"Swear to God, man. And it gets weirder. He was there in 1851."

"That's not… Oh, who am I kidding? It's completely possible. Are you sure it's the same guy?"

"Found a picture of him. Matches the one Sara gave me, that one with her mom, remember? Same name, same face, same location."

"Too many coincidences," Dean agreed. "Shit. No wonder he knows so much."

"What?" Will nearly yelped. "He's there?"

"Yep. Keep researching Jamestown, man. I need to know the location of the church, just in case Linus isn't the bad guy here."

"And if he is?"

"Then we'll get the information in a slightly more direct way, alright?"

"Dean… what do we tell Sara?"

"Let's just get her back first. Everything else, we can deal with."

Dean had no idea who he was trying to convince with that last brash statement, but judging from the way Will hung up on him without another word, he didn't succeed on either count.

Looking over at Li, Dean took a deep breath. Sara came first. Whatever happened next, if he could get her back safe, it was worth it.

Even if he was talking about her father.

Even if.

xxx

Sara gave the wooden door a critical once-over. Sturdy wood, old iron fittings, a little iron grill at about eye-level. All fine and dandy, except for the fact that the only way she'd ever be able to break a door like this down would be by getting herself possessed.

Which wasn't exactly an option, so Sara was relieved to find the door unlocked.

The corridor beyond the door didn't seem to have any windows whatsoever and Sara couldn't even judge how long the damn thing was. But it was the only option, so she retrieved her pathetic penlight and headed forward.

More stone, more darkness, even more dust. And more doors, all identical to the one she'd already walked through, except for one tiny detail. Sara had passed three doors before she spotted it, and then she just had to double back to check, but once you knew it was there, it was easy to spot. Just below the tiny windows cut into each door, there was a rough engraving, a short string of letters. No, not letters. Numerals. Roman numerals.

"Eighteen… fifty-six," Sara muttered, working it out. "No, fifty-one."

The next door read 1873, then 1895, and so on until she reached 1983. Seven doors, all in a row. And then an eighth, still slightly ajar, with MMV scratched deep into the surface. 2005.

Sara swallowed. Well, that couldn't be good. She backed away from the eighth door, heading back to the seventh. Might as well know what she was dealing with, after all.

The doors didn't seem to have locks, just bolts on the outside, and those weren't even rusted. Sara tried to peer through the little grill thingy and couldn't make out a single thing, so she just grabbed the bolt and slowly worked it free. The door opened with the stench of death and decay and Sara sighed, seeing the hunched corpse in the corner of the tiny room.

The room, cell, glorified cupboard, had no windows, no light. It was barely large enough to stretch out your legs, even wedged in a corner like the sorry body in front of her. No chains, no blood stains, and the body looked whole, no obvious wounds or anything. Reluctantly, Sara turned the thin beam from her penlight to the inside of the door.

She had to fight back the urge to hurl. The inside of the door was scratched and smeared with old blood. This poor sod had been locked in and left to die.

And there was another door, an empty cell just waiting to be filled.

Sara backed away, pushed the door shut again on that awful sight. She was not going to end up like that. She wasn't.

Past the eighth door, there was a ninth, right at the end of the corridor. There were no roman numerals on it, which was just about the only good thing Sara could spot.

She didn't want to go through that door. But then, she didn't want to be here, either, or to be so goddamn scared, and since when did want mean anything in her world? Besides, there might be some way out through that door.

But she pulled her revolver out before approaching the door. It made her feel a little better.

xxx

Dean knew he was overly protective of the Impala. He knew it, but he wasn't particularly bothered by it, and he had no intention of doing anything about it. The car was, for lack of a better term, home, a reassuring constant in a really inconsistent life.

And he didn't like having strangers riding shotgun. As a kid and then a teenager, it had been strictly his place, with Sammy in the back. Then his dad had brought his gigantic black truck, which Sara had always called- did always call 'Truckzilla', and Dean had moved onto the driver's seat, with Sammy – and later Sara – in the passenger seat.

Having Linus there was making Dean very, very testy. But hauling off and punching him in the middle of Jamestown wasn't really an option, so Dean had to go subtly. Which, contrary to popular rumour, he could do. He just preferred not to.

"So this Will guy got a lead on the church?"

"Yep," Dean lied easily. Lying always made him feel better about a lack of violence. "Kinda sketchy, but it's the best idea we've got, so…"

Linus nodded in agreement. "Does this sort of thing happen to Sara a lot?"

That question shocked Dean into honesty. "This is the first time. I got snatched once, just after we started working together, and she got cursed one time, but that's about it."

"You broke the curse?"

Dean nodded. "And she took down a doppelganger. That was kinda cool."

"I thought she was an exorcist."

"She ain't like her mom. Bit more active."

"Good. Good." And Linus sounded like he meant it, which was just odd. All of Sara's actual family had been dead set against Hunters in general and Sara hunting in particular. There was a long pause before Linus spoke again. "I don't want her ending like her mother did."

Amelia Lucian had ended lonely and depressed and despairing and, most likely, at her own design. It wasn't something Dean or anyone else had ever spoken about, not to Sara, not even among themselves. It was something that Dean had thought about and worried about strictly in the privacy of his own head, and he'd come to a firm conclusion long ago.

"She won't. I won't let her."

Linus nodded again, like that had been what he expected.

Dean spotted a decent looking spot and pulled the Impala over. They were far enough away from town. This would do. He got out of the car, waited until Linus did the same, and walked casually into the woods a little way.

"It is kinda amazing, you know, what Will can find with those computers of his," Dean said conversationally. "Beats Google all to hell."

"Uh-huh," Linus said absently. "So what are we looking for here?"

"Answers, same as always." Dean pulled his pistol out from the small of his back and pointed it at Linus. "Starting with what the fuck you are, man, and what the hell you've been doing here."

xxx  
Next chapter will be up in five days or so. Please review, guys.


	3. Chapter 3

3xxx

Linus held up his hands in the classic _please, don't shoot_ position. "Kid, this isn't-"

"You were here in 1851, I already know you're one unnatural son of a bitch, and my best friend is missing. So answer the fucking question right now."

"Or what? You'll shoot me? Bet Sara would love that."

"Better than making her do it herself. Course, her grandma would've just handed her a pistol and told her to get on with it, so you might prefer me to leave it for her."

"I'm not a Lucian."

"Still not that human, though." Dean smiled one of his predatory smiles. "So tell me. What kind of bad blood do you have to have in you to be able to take a little stroll into the Pit?"

"I haven't been sacrificing virgins or anything. This is not my fault!"

"Then tell me what's going on!"

"I'm a Deathwalker, you know that! I can walk into Heaven and Hell but I'm not allowed to stay in either, not ever."

Dean paused. "You mean… you're immortal? Come on!"

"It's a side effect." Linus looked away, furious. "And I don't have to justify my fucked up DNA to you. So unless you wanna shoot me to test it…"

Dean did. He really did. But that might not help anyone right now. "Doesn't answer my question. What the hell are you?"

"I'm human, you little prick. I'm no more demonic than a seer!"

"Humans can die. Kinda a defining part of 'em."

"Maybe. But I've never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, and that's more than can be said for the most of the things you hunt."

"What about Sara? Does she deserve this?"

"Kid's screwed up enough without me helping her out," Linus replied. "My… condition doesn't affect her, trust me. I've faced plenty of Hunters in my time, been the prey more often than I like. I didn't want her acting like you."

"Would she be wrong to?"

"I'm just trying to do my job here. Did Sara ever mention the Purges?"

"Yeah. Hunters went all pure-blood on their allies, killed most of the psychics and seers and stuff." Dean had never got that before, but the urge to shoot Li just on the principle of the thing was going to bother him if he thought about it too much. He didn't think of himself as one of those Hunters.

"The original priest of Jamestown was one of those. A girl in the village started showing signs of…"

"The Shining?" Dean shook his head. "Damn. That's the second time Sara's frickin' genes have got her in trouble."

"The priest had reasonably good intentions, but he was… well, he was a bit like you," Linus finished nastily. "Associated such things exclusively with the devil and thought the poor girl was the anti-Christ."

"So he killed her?"

"Worse. He tried to save her."

"Why do I get the feeling you don't mean actual saving?"

"He was old school, Dean. The kind of person who would burn a possessed host to death to save their human soul."

"But Sara isn't possessed. She's psychic, it's in her blood. She can't get rid of it." Dean paused. "But that's the point. He wasn't just a priest. To know about the ESP thing, he must've been a Hunter. And he wanted them dead."

Linus nodded. "When the girl died, something bad was unleashed. I'm not sure why. The whole place was destroyed and it was pretty much exclusively the priest's fault. The Church, all of the Churches actually, knows way more about the supernatural than they like to admit. When Jamestown was destroyed, they knew why. It was declared Unholy ground and the records for the Church were destroyed. So your clever little friend is not going to be able to find anything."

"If you know that, how come you bought my BS story?"

"Because I thought if you got all this paranoia out of your system, you might be able to help me find Sara."

"You're still a freak."

"I know."

"And I still don't like you."

"Dean, you wouldn't like me even if I turned out to be an angel."

"That's not true. I'd prefer you if you were an angel. Then you wouldn't exist at all."

xxx

The last room of her macabre little prison was practically identical to the corridor. Same stone walls, floor, ceiling. Same dust and grime. A large desk, to the right. No second door, and Sara's heart sank. She had no problem waiting for Dean – if anyone could find her, she knew he could – but no way out meant no way in.

A sob escaped her before she could stop it, and she dropped the torch to cram her hand into her mouth. For a second, she was seven again, trapped in a cupboard by her first poltergeist, and utterly terrified.

"Oh, god," she muttered, furiously wiping her eyes.

She picked up the torch again, ignoring the way the light shook, and made herself look around again. Panicking wouldn't help her. Wouldn't make her feel better, even, and Sara turned to the desk. It was huge, presumably made of wood. Nothing too interesting about it or the myriad of trinkets scattered over its surface and Sara started on the drawers.

Three were full of junk, nothing of interest to be found. The fourth was locked. Sara pulled out of her longer knives. She could pick locks, on a good day, but this was in no way a good day and it was easier to force the damn thing. More satisfying, as well.

When the drawer jerked open, Sara pulled out its only contents, a large book. She only needed to look at a few pages to know exactly what she had in her hands.

It was a journal. A Hunter's journal. It was written in spidery, near-illegible script, but there were incantations, sketches of demons and tooth-marks, records of suspicious deaths.

So… this had been some sort of Hunter's base? It wasn't completely illogical, Sara supposed. After a hundred and fifty years or so, there wouldn't be much trace of any protections symbols left, but a place like this would have been easily defendable. Pastor Jim used his basement as a base, for that matter.

Sara bit her lip thoughtfully and turned the seriously insufficient beam of her torch up towards the ceiling. Hunters were predictable creatures, provided they weren't called Dean Winchester. And there it was. Sara smiled. A Devil's Trap, carved deeply into the ceiling.

And where did you most often find Devil's Traps?

Over the entrances.

Snatching her knife back up from the desk, Sara hurried over the spot of wall directly below the Devil's Trap. The wall was so thickly coated in filth that the cracks between the stones were almost invisible. Coughing slightly, she started to rub the dust away until her fingers hit the long vertical groove. It was too long to be just the dip between bricks, too deep when she slid her knife in.

Okay, so she had the edge of what had better be a door. A thorough search eventually produced the hinges. Definitely a door, even without anything resembling a door handle. Now, if she could just get it open and hopefully find stairs to the surface on the other side, she'd have just about everything she wanted.

She really needed to figure out a way to keep a crowbar with her at all times, the amount of times she'd ended up needing one at an awkward moment. Shaking her head, Sara started work on the hinges. They were made of stone, but it was much thinner stone than that of the main door itself. Destroy the hinges, find some way to lever the door open, get out of here. Not too bad, as plans went.

Somewhere behind her, a door slammed.

This just kept getting better and better. Sara was shaking, she realised to her chagrin. She wasn't a little girl, scared of the dark, not any more. Instead, she was scared of the things in the dark.

Yeah, that so wasn't the time to have that thought. When you were a Hunter, it was very hard to blame creepy feelings on an over-active imagination.

Sara stepped forward, just a few steps, then paused, listening. Another step, another pause, and she was sure. For every step she took, there was the sound of two footfalls, one her's, the other… something else's.

"I am not worth the trouble, mate," she yelled. "So how about you just knock this off?"

Another footstep.

"You have been watching way too many movies," Sara muttered. God, one of Dean's salt-loaded shotguns would be such a good thing right now. Or any salt at all. Of course, if it was a zombie, the animated corpse of one of the people in the cells, she was so very, very dead.

She lunged for the door and slammed it shut, keeping the penlight firmly in one hand. There was another of the ancient heavy-duty bolts and she slammed it home. Doors would stop a zombie, at least for a while. If it was a ghost, on the other hand…

With her back firmly against the door, Sara's gaze fell once more on the old desk. Places were often haunted by the person who had lived there. If this was a Hunter's place, a Hunter from a couple of centuries back…

A Purist. She had a Purist Hunter on her hands. One that wouldn't get the fine distinction between different and dangerous. The kind of man that killed exorcists and psychics. And Sara fit in both categories.

A chunky statuette flew across the room from the desk, smashing into the door just beside Sara's face even as she ducked, the torch falling to the floor.

The door started to shake and a voice roared from the other side.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!"

xxx

"So if you've been here before, how come you have no idea where we're supposed to go?" Dean asked, just a little nastily. Okay, a lot nastily.

Li rolled his eyes. "It was a long time ago, and I wasn't exactly palling up with the local psychopath."

Dean resisted the urge to hurt Linus. Killing him was, apparently, out of the question, but Dean could be creative as well as violent. It was already getting dark and he still didn't have a single lead on Sara.

"Would you stop acting so goddamn superior?" he snapped. "You've hardly got anything to boast about here."

"Guess I don't." Linus looked at Dean thoughtfully. "You're an older brother, right?"

"What?"

"You had a kid sibling at some point?"

"Still do. Why?"

"Just wondering."

"No, that wasn't a question. That was just you checking a fact or something. What does my family have to do with anything?"

"Aside from that fact that your dad seems to think that Sara makes good bait?"

"You know what? Screw this. I'm gonna go find her."

"How?"

It was Dean's turn to roll his eyes. "By looking. This place isn't that big and there's bound to be some sign of that church."

"You mean the church which was totally destroyed."

"Well, maybe she isn't in the church. Ghosts don't do so well on hallowed ground. What if the priest was the kind of guy who liked to work at home?"

xxx

In her stone prison, Sara was feeling considerably less optimistic as time went on. She'd managed to choke out the first half of a banishment ritual, but having to stop and duck every other minute was ruining her concentration. This was precisely the reason why just about every Hunter preferred a salt-and-burn to any kinda ritual.

The desk was flung across the room, slamming into the spot where the door out was supposed to be, and the door Sara was crouched by was still shaking.

"You will be cleansed with Holy Fire!" came the voice from the other side of the door. "God commands it!"

"No, he doesn't!" Sara screamed back. "I am not a bloody witch!"

The bolt on the door started to slide across and Sara, more out of desperation than anything else, jammed her knife in the way. For one fragile moment, there was calm.

Tentatively, Sara stood up. When nothing moved, she lunged for her backpack. The calm was not going to last, she knew, so she needed to get a move on. Cleansing ritual, that would do. Possibly. It was quicker than a banishment, but much less likely to work.

Tin bowl, packet of pre-mixed herbs, box of matches. Put the bowl on the floor, tear the packet open with your teeth and tip out the herbs. Just like Gran had always done it. Easy. Sara lit one of the matches, holding it over the neat pile of herbs.

The bowl shot across the room, scattering the herbs.

"Son of a bitch!" Sara yelled and got a fragment of desk thrown at her in reply.

With her arms up for a measure of protection, Sara edged away from the wooden door until her back was to a corner of the room, remembering to snatch the penlight up again. From her bag, she pulled out the jar of chrism oil she'd pinched from Pastor Jim. The stuff made a fairly decent protective circle and it was the work of a moment to draw a line of the oil around herself. That wouldn't stop a flying bit of debris, but it would stop the ghost itself. In theory.

The knife she'd wedged into the bolt fell to the ground with a clatter and the door swung open.

"You dare?" the spirit yelled. "You dare to use His tools against me?"

"The question you should be asking is why does it work," Sara shot back. "Now, can I at least get a look at the bastard who wants me dead?"

It was odd. Some ghosts looked like rotting corpses, some like barely-perceivable wisps, but this one, when he stepped forward into the torchlight, didn't even look like he was dead. Well, apart from the nineteenth century clothing. But he looked like a Hunter, Sara realised, like the kind of guys she respected and worked with. Moved the same way and looked at her like she'd seen Dean look at a hundred monsters.

"Why are you doing this?" Sara asked. She'd never held with talking to the dearly departed, but she didn't really have much of a choice at the moment. "I'm an exorcist. I'm on your side."

"You can't beat the devil by selling your soul."

"I haven't done that."

"Not yet," he replied and he sounded genuinely sorry. "But you're going to do things, terrible things. It's in your nature. You've already started."

Sara felt something in her chest tighten painfully. "At least I don't kill innocent people."

"But you do. Addie Johnston, what about her?"

"She was possessed! It wasn't my fault! It wasn't."

The man shrugged. "You said the words and she died. Sounds like it was your fault. Or then there's Nicholas, or that little girl with the brown hair. You never even found out her name, did you?"

"So, what, are you going to run down the list of all the people I couldn't save? You think I can't remember every single one?" She could, easy as her own name. In five years of exorcisms, she lost seven people during the ritual itself. She'd stopped checking up on the survivors when she'd found out that three had committed suicide shortly afterwards. Sometimes, it was just easier not to know.

"If you know what you're doing, why don't you stop?"

"And let the demons run around unchecked? Yeah, 'cause that would be so much better. Remind me. How did folk like you deal with possessed hosts? Burning, beheading and burial alive. How is that any better? What fucking right do you have to the moral high ground?"

"I'm doing what has to be done."

"Well, so am I! So is every bloody Hunter out there and it doesn't make any of them saints!"

"You don't understand. He's coming back, he's trying again," the man said.

Sara caught the faint edge of desperation in the words. "He? Which he?"

"Every time, every time he gets closer. Sooner or later, he'll manage to do it, and then everyone will die. Your death will stop all that."

"Stop what? What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry. I really am. But I can't let him win!"

The chair hit Sara in the side, hard enough to bounce her off the wall and she fell, unconscious, lying half out of the circle.

In the stone corridor, the door marked MMV swung open, thudding against the wall.

xxx  
Next chapter will be up in five days or so. Please review, guys.


	4. Chapter 4

xxx

Dean spread a map of the local area on the hood of the Impala. "Okay, so we're here. There's the new Jamestown. Where was the old one?"

"Uh, east of the river, few miles south of the cemetery. So… there," Linus said, pointing. "Roughly."

"Cemetery? The original one?"

"The priest's body was destroyed years ago."

"Damn. That would've made things a lot simpler." Dean regarded the map with a critical eye. "The cemetery's, what, forty miles from here? This is gonna take time. Too much time. How does this guy kill his victims?"

"No idea. They go missing, they're never seen again. But, logically speaking, Sara should still be alive. This guy was obsessed with salvation."

"So first he'll try to save her?"

Linus pulled a face. "If you can call it that. He'll try to break her spirit, make her repent, that kind of thing. It'll be anything but pleasant."

"Sara isn't exactly one to take abuse lying down."

"Sounds familiar." Linus' half-smile faded quickly. "Even if we find the right place, this guy isn't just going to let us walk away with Sara."

"Well, we can't salt and burn the bastard. Any kind of ritual is a little out of my skill-set, even if we could get in to the hotspot. What are you thinking?"

"Séance, maybe. Draw the ghost away while you get Sara."

"Would that work? The guy must know we're not here to make friends."

"Doesn't matter. He can't resist a séance, no ghost can."

"And I guess I don't have to worry about you dying on me," Dean added as they climbed back into the car. "Alright. Let's do this."

xxx

Sara woke up when something thudded nearby. Whatever that had been, it hadn't helped her pounding head. At least she was already vaguely upright, leaning against the wall, so she wouldn't have to move just yet. With a groan, she opened her eyes.

More darkness. Wonderful. What did that son of a bitch hit her with? Trying to suppress the imminent nausea, Sara felt around for her penlight. Light would be a big help right now.

No matter which way she reached, she hit stone. When her fingers finally touched wood, Sara struggled to her feet, headache be damned, slamming herself against the door of the cell.

"Let me out!" she screamed. "Let me out!"

She screamed until her voice broke and then she sobbed, still pounding on the door. Finally, exhausted, she slumped, heading resting against the wood, tears trickling down her face.

"Please…"

xxx

They passed the cemetery in silence and headed south. Dean kept his eyes fixed on the mileometer. He'd found stranger places with less information. It shouldn't be too hard to find the remnants of a whole village. When they hit the five mile mark, he pulled the car over.

"I'll head back to the cemetery, get on with the ritual," Linus said. "That should be far enough away to get this ghost out of your way."

"And afterwards?"

"Well, hopefully you'll find Sara and get the hell out of here."

"Not what I meant, dude."

"You going to tell Sara that her daddy's a monster?"

Dean shrugged. "Shouldn't have to be me, but, yeah, I will if you won't."

"What does it matter? My condition doesn't affect her in any way, 'cept for pissing her off, and I'm not exactly planning to play a huge part in her life."

"It matters 'cause Sara's been screwed over by her family once too often for my liking and I am damned if I'll let you do the same. So it doesn't affect her. You think any Hunter who doesn't know her will buy that? They'll hear cursed and immortal and they'll assume the worst and she'll get hurt." Dean looked away, getting more furious by the minute. "She doesn't need another threat, especially not one that she doesn't even know about."

Linus opened the Impala's door without speaking and got out. Dean followed the older – the much older – man back to the trunk.

"Sara isn't going to hunt you, man." Dean smiled grimly for a moment. "She feels guilty about hating her grandmother and that woman really was a bitch. And, side point, if you're trying to stop her distrusting you, you're way too late."

"Jesus, Winchester, if you're so worked up about it, you tell her."

"Like I said, I will if I have to. But our world's kinda small, in case you haven't noticed. You'll run in her again some day and I guarantee you, if you keep lying to her, she'll never forgive you."

"It'll take me an hour to make it back to the cemetery. Is that enough time?" Linus said.

"Yeah, should be. Now, are you gonna give me an answer or-"

"I'll tell her."

"Good." Dean grabbed a shotgun and his EMF detector, and by the time he turned back, Linus was gone. "Provided you don't stab me in the back," he muttered, checking the weapon. Then, with a final glance around, he hefted a shovel and headed off.

Whatever had happened here, Dean had to admit that it had been thorough. There was no sign whatsoever that there had ever been a village here and, if not for the telltale squeal from the EMF detector, he never would have found the right place.

It took him a good forty five minutes to find the centre of the readings. Any Hunter worth his salt knew how to dig something up and Dean had spent one very slow summer when he was a teenager digging and refilling grave-sized pits every day. With the sort of incentive he had right then, it wasn't long before he found what looked suspiciously like a trapdoor, buried under the earth.

With a satisfied grin, Dean cleared the surface off. Getting the damn thing open was more difficult, what with god knows how many years of rust and decay and all, but he managed it eventually by breaking the hinges and levering the whole thing up and away. There was a set of stone steps, worn with age, leading down into darkness. The light from his flashlight showed a stone wall, or door, possibly.

He abandoned the shovel in favour of free hands for his shotgun and flashlight and headed down into the dark. When he reached the bottom of the steps, he could just make out the iron ring set into one of the stones. Bingo, ancient door handle. Dean wedged the flashlight under his arm to be able to tug at the ring. It didn't move, not even a fraction of an inch. From the way the hair on the back of his neck was tingling, it wasn't just age and decay that was holding the door shut.

"Come on, Linus," Dean muttered. "Don't prove me right now."

xxx

One of the bonuses of Linus' unnatural heritage was that he didn't need a séance to talk to the dead. He could pay them a visit in the comfort of the afterlife. But he knew the ritual. Lighting the candle, he muttered the Latin half-heartedly under his breath. Performing the ritual away from the Winchester boy – and, by default, his daughter – was the smart thing to do and the performer in Li just loved the idea of doing a séance in a graveyard at night.

It was only a few moments before the ghostly image of an ancient Hunter appeared before him.

"David," Linus said in greeting. It had been a long time since he'd seen this man alive, but death was hardly the end for a Deathwalker.

"Linus," the ghost replied. "It's done."

"No, it's not, old friend. You got the wrong one."

"But… But she fits! I know Azazel will go after her. She was with that boy, the one who'll-"

"I know. But she's not his special favourite. She's not even one of the kids he's chosen."

David ran a hand through his hair. "How long have we got?"

"Five or so months until he rises. Then, two years 'till the Hellgate."

"That's more than enough time. You can find the right child, the one connected to that boy, get him here-"

"David, I can't!" Linus butt in. "Not this time. The boy is a Hunter and his father is gunning for Azazel."

"You- They-" David paused. "What?"

"This man, John Winchester, he came to me. Wanted to know about the thing that killed his wife."

"Azazel?"

"Yep. Winchester… he's on a goddamn quest to kill this thing."

"And you think he'll be able to? Really?"

"No. But we won't be able to get our hands on his boy. Kid was smart enough to walk away from this world. He'd be too smart to walk into any trap I could come up with and I really don't think he'd respond well to an invitation from a ghost."

"So we just have to wait for the end of the world, is that your big plan? I've killed seven people for this work! Azazel destroyed my entire town in retribution for what I did to the first one! I'm not giving up now."

"I don't think we have to. We've always had a choice, David. Save them or kill them. We couldn't save 'em. But the boy… he's got this brother…"

"For goodness' sake, Linus! You of all people should know how badly a brother can get things wrong, even with the best of intentions."

"Well, I don't have any other ideas!" Linus shouted. "We bought the world a hundred and fifty years. We might not be able to go any further."

"They're nothing more'n children, Linus," David said, sounding utterly confused.

Linus could relate to that. "And we're both dead men walking. At least those kids still believe they can actually win."

xxx

God, she was going to go insane.

Sara curled more tightly into the corner of her minute cell and tried not to scream. Again. Mind you, she didn't seem to be able to breathe properly at the moment, so maybe she didn't have enough oxygen to scream.

Her hand went automatically to her chest, expecting to grasp her silver pendant, and Sara's spiralling emotions racketed up another notch when it still wasn't there. She gripped the shoulder of her own jacket itself, crossing her arm over her chest in a pathetic attempt at protection.

It took three days to die from dehydration, Sara thought. Something like that. Too damn long, any way. Because while every second she stayed alive was another chance for Dean to save her, every second she spent in this place was going to destroy her.

Shit, all the things she'd seen and faced and, with Dean's help, laughed in the face of and all it took was a dark, confined space to drive her over the edge into mind-numbing terror. It was stupid, it was illogical, it was weak, and if Dean knew about her claustrophobia, he'd... He'd…

He'd tease her about it and then do anything he could to stay between her and the dark places.

Sara tilted her head back against the wall. The only good thing about the dark was that nobody could see her cry.

xxx

If asked to pinpoint the exact moment when the ghost vacated the area, Dean wouldn't be able to give an answer. But he just knew when it was time to grab hold of the ancient door ring and start to tug. The door didn't want to move, but Dean wanted in. It took time, too much time, but eventually he had the stone monstrosity wide open.

Inside, there was more darkness. With the shotgun up and ready, flashlight in his other hand, Dean headed in. Reflexively checking the ceiling for any crawling demon or somesuch, he shook his head when he saw the Devil's Trap. Some things just didn't change.

Dean scanned the room quickly but efficiently, stepping over the trashed remains of what might have been a piece of furniture. The light reflected momentarily off something small in the corner, something which, when Dean picked it up, he recognised as Sara's all-purpose tin bowl.

A little more frantically, he swung around and spotted a far too familiar black rucksack in the opposite corner of the room, Sara's revolver lying next to it. Dean snatched the rucksack up automatically, swinging it over one shoulder, tucked the revolver away, and then he spotted the smear of fresh blood on the wall.

He straightened slowly, deliberately. Then he took a deep breath. "Sara! Sara, where are you? Answer me!"

xxx

In her cell, Sara jerked her head up.

The cry came again, so close, so definitely Dean.

She stumbled to her feet, cracking both elbows on the stone walls, and started pounding on the door again.

"Dean! Dean! Get me out of here!"

xxx

Dean burst through into the corridor. It wasn't hard to find which door Sara was trapped behind. His hands shook as he pulled on the heavy bolt and it wasn't just the need for haste that had him acting like that. In almost three years of hunting, he'd never heard Sara that scared before.

Finally, finally, he could swing the door open and did so, promptly dropping both shotgun and flashlight to wrap both arms around a shaking, nearly sobbing Sara. Not that he needed to hold onto her, the way her hands were knotted in his shirt, but still.

He could easily see the tiny room Sara had been trapped in and Dean shuddered, dropping his gaze to the top of her head instead.

"It's okay," he said firmly. "I got you."

Sara nodded against his shirt, but made no attempt to move. Dean spotted dried blood on one of her temples and gently brushed red hair back to check it over. Looked okay, and he pulled back fractionally to be able to look into her eyes. With the flashlight at their feet, he couldn't make out much, but Sara looked more than ready to get out of there.

"Alright, let's get you out of here," Dean said, but didn't move till Sara stepped back and picked up the flashlight, nodding.

"No argument from me."

Dean grabbed the shotgun again and turned, then paused.

"By the way," he said with a grin. "Thought you might like this back." And held out Sara's pendant, dangling from its black cord.

The look on Sara's face made Dean feel a lot better and she slipped the necklace over her neck, right where it was supposed to be.

"Ready to kill this thing?" Dean asked and tossed Sara her revolver.

She caught it, grinning, and nodded.

xxx

The ghost of David Scott paced angrily as Linus watched, learning against a convenient tombstone. "The girl's not strong enough. The boy's got potential, maybe, but he's not ready to take on something like a Hell Lord."

"He's got time," Linus said for what felt like the hundredth time. "They both do."

"Time for what? The girl's already been affected by her work, even if she hasn't realised it yet."

"I know that, David. I saw what it did to Amelia."

"So warn the girl! Get her to stop!"

"How would that help us? Azazel always brings his lieutenants out to play and she'll be the only person who'll have half a chance of saving the hosts."

"Is this really the time to-" David flickered out of sight, just for a split second. "What-?"

Linus straightened up. "I'm sorry, but those kids were never about to let you keep on doing what you've been doing."

David stared at his hands in mute horror as they disappeared and reappeared. Five miles away, Sara Lucian was chanting Latin, one hand holding tightly onto her pendant.

"It'll be okay," Linus continued. "I know it'll be okay."

The ghost of a long-dead preacher looked back up at the Deathwalker and, just in the split second before the banishment was completed, smiled.

Linus pushed himself away from the tombstone and started walking. He had a long way to go.

xxx  
The final chapter will be up in five days or less. Please review, guys. Pretty please?


	5. Chapter 5

xxx

Two days after Dean had broken Sara out of her very own death chamber, the two of them stopped the Impala in the middle of nowhere and just waited.

When Dean spotted Linus, driving towards them in a beat up Camaro, he nudged Sara in the ribs and then stayed right where he was as she climbed out of the car. Family was something you had to deal with yourself, after all. Dean waited until she reached Linus and then looked back and nodded before cranking up the music and staring fixedly in the other direction.

Sara smiled slightly when she recognised her friend's attempt to give her some privacy, but Dean's antics weren't enough to make her feel any better about this. She faced Linus, the smile fading.

"Thanks for helping Dean find me," she said simply.

"Anytime."

"Well, I was hoping more for 'never again', but…" Sara smiled again, more than a little self-mockingly. "So do you want to start with the immortality thing or should I?"

"Dean told you."

"He didn't have to. I'm… I'm good at figuring out what's wrong. You know how many traces a person can leave in just a few years for anyone to find? Found some picture of you from some celebration thirty years ago, looking just like you do now. Six months of destroying every trace of you I could find because Dean's right. You're gonna get me killed."

Linus nodded. "Your mother thought the same way."

"Smart woman. How did she find out?"

"Uh, a demon she was chasing ran through my bar, slit my throat. I think she was more upset when I got back up, to be honest."

"Mum never did like surprises."

"Sara? How did you know what to look for?"

Sara shrugged. "Your name. Gran would read me Greek myths instead of fairy tales when I was a kid. Linus, renowned musician. Said to have died a variety of brutal ways. More importantly, brother of Orpheus, another chap who could walk into Hell. You did say it ran in the family."

"Yeah, it does."

"But the deathwalker thing is separate to the immortality, isn't it? Because you told Dean that it wouldn't affect me."

"When I died, Orpheus couldn't cope. He brought me back. But he got it wrong. Charon is forbidden to take me to my final resting place because of what he did."

"Well, at least you didn't sacrifice any virgins. You get that this is goodbye, right?"

"Yeah, I get it. Be careful, please."

"Always am." She smiled slightly, turning away, and began to walk back to the Impala.

"Sara… the myths aren't entirely true. They never are," Linus called after her.

She stopped, looking back over her shoulder. "What?"

"Orpheus didn't try to save Eurydice. He chose me over her. Just like Dean will choose Sam over you."

"Is there some point to this that I'm just not getting?"

"Just… Just don't be stupid, alright? If you need Dean to survive this life, get out of this life because he is not going to be there forever."

"I do more good with people like him."

"Good? This life will get you killed, Sara, and nothing good is going to come out of it, not a damn thing."

"How dare you? For god's sake, Linus, you're immortal! You could face down any ghost, any demon without any fear and you work in a bar. How can you do that and then tell me that my work isn't good? At least I fight. At least I try to do some good!"

"I fought. I fought for a thousand years and it didn't change anything. There is always another demon."

"No wonder Mum loved you. Both of you just gave up."

She turned away again and this time, she didn't turn back when Linus called her name. Dean had already started up the Impala by the time she reached it and they were gone the moment she stepped inside.

xxx

"You know, while I respect your need for personal space or whatever, this really isn't a good time to disappear from the room in the middle of the night," Dean said conversationally, leaning against the room door.

Sara glanced up from her perch on the Impala's hood, where she had been reading in the glow of one of the motel's security lights. "Sorry."

Dean pulled himself up next to her. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Needed some air."

"Never pictured you as claustrophobic."

"Everyone's allowed a weakness," she said with a vague shrug.

"What happened?"

"Me, a poltergeist, a cupboard…" Sara paused. "No big deal. I survived, after all."

"Does it ever occur to you that maybe we need a new definition for 'no big deal'?"

"Nah. We don't do anything else the normal way, so why bother?" She leant back against the car's windshield until she could stare up at the sky. "Heard from John?"

"Left him a message, told him what happened. Next time he gives us a job, we'll-"

"Dive blindly in like always. This wasn't his fault, Dean. Wasn't anyone's, you understand?"

"Not even Li's?"

"Don't go there. I have an unreasonable desire to hit someone and I'd hate for it to be you with a black-eye."

"Sara, I know you, okay? You wanna tell me something but you don't know how to start, so how about you just say it, alright?"

Sara huffed quietly, still looking at the sky. "You're such a…" She glanced at Dean, but back to the stars. "Linus used to be a Hunter. And he says we're not going to do any good. That we can't win."

"We beat the demons and ghosts, we save lives. Sounds like winning to me."

"But that ghost, the old priest, he said someone was coming. Coming back, like, rising again or something." Sara paused, swallowing. "And that if he won, we'd all die. All of us."

Dean sat up a little straighter, frowning. "He? Who's he?"

"I don't know. But I don't think I wanna meet him, whoever he is."

He slung one arm around her shoulders. "Come on, you're just dying for a chance to save the world. Sara Lucian, defender of the earth."

"You've been watching too much tv, my little freak." But she was smiling again.

"Doesn't matter what's coming, Sara, 'cause there isn't a damn thing that can stand up to us." Dean grinned at her, all cockiness and honest faith, a combination that just about no one else in the world would be able to pull off. "Not a damn thing."

xxx  
Jacksonville, Florida,  
2nd April, 2005,

Mina, a waitress who had delusion of grandeur according to her mother, didn't mind working in the Fish Tank. Decent pay, reasonably good hours, a boss who disapproved of customers being too interested if Mina wasn't interested in turn, even if he didn't discourage the occasional altercation. Provided no furniture was broken, old man Jones could care less, so long as Mina stopped any of the bottles being smashed.

But tonight was looking to be pretty quiet. Which meant less tips, but also less ducking. Although, Mina thought as she stood behind the bar, there was one man who was definitely spoiling for a fight, the one sitting over by the far wall. She sighed. He was a good looking guy too, amazing body and red-gold hair. Mina had always loved redheads. But she wasn't about to try and hook up with someone who looked more in the mood for fighting than fucking.

Another man entered the bar, older than the redhead but still cute enough to snag Mina's interest, but when he headed straight for the redhead and the yelling began, she gave up completely.

It really was always the good looking ones, wasn't it?

As the girl at the bar turned back to serving beer and shots, Linus fought back the urge to start throttling Winchester in the middle of the Fish Tank.

"We agreed," he hissed instead at the Hunter. "We agreed that Sara was to be left out of it! How does dangling her in front of that spirit even begin to count as keeping her out of this?"

"It doesn't," John admitted. "But I never sent her there. I sent Dean there."

"Damn it, Winchester, you know she goes where he leads!"

"Her problem, not mine. Do you have it?"

Linus dropped the book on the table, the journal of David Scott, taken from his old base. "Take it. But you might wanna have a word with your boy about toasting that ghost. One day, you might be grateful for someone who'll kill your son for you."

John slammed his hand down on the table, but Linus only laughed.

"Hey, you wanted the truth, man," he said, grinning more than a little sadistically. "Can't complain if it hurts."

"I love my sons."

"Yeah, I can see that. Nothing says fatherly love like sending your son into a hunt with only half the information he needs." Linus pushed himself away from the table, shaking his head as he left he bar.

"Don't worry," John said quietly to himself, drawing the book closer. "This is one hunt that won't be attempted without preparation."

xxx

Author's ramblings-

Thus concludes Cum Grano Salis (which is poncy Latin for 'with a grain of salt', for anyone who's interested). Once again, I beg on bended knee for any comments you might wish to make. The series will continue with SNAFU, which will be a series of chapters (probably one per episode plus some extra moments here and there) depicting Dean's, Sam's and Sara's adventures during season one...

At the end of October 2005, Sara Lucian convinced Dean Winchester to team up with his estranged brother Sam to find his father, leaving Sara to hunt alone. By November 2005, she was already regretting that. Between the disappearances, the deaths and, oh, yes, the demons, not to mention the beginning of some evil plan to end the world, their lives were never going to be quite so easy again. 


End file.
